New Year across the Atlantic Ocean: Argentina

This show's Argentinean ambassador Soledad on her NYE:

I don’t know how it is in your countries guys, but in Argentina Christmas and New Year's Eve are quite similar. That is: a lot of food, a lot of drinks, and also a lot of dancing (ok, the last thing depends on the family). I’m from the capital, Buenos Aires and I live in a “Barrio”, close to other people who are not only neighbors, but friends. So it’s very easy to go on the streets and have a drink with them on the sidewalk. We also organized some neighborhood parties on the corners of the streets or in some squares.

We usually toast twice to the New Year at midnight, first, after the family dinner on December 24th, so that's kind of an antecipating toast and finally on December 31st. After the toast everyone is free to go wherever they want to, and it’s very common that teens and young adults go and see friends and lovers. The rest of the family can stay awake till long in the morning, I would guesstimate 5, 6 o'clock or maybe even later, drinking, eating sweet things or sometimes just chatting.

Something really odd about our typical food is, that is not seasonal since the recipes are imported from Europe, where it's winter during this time, whilst we are sweating heavily under the south equatorian summer sun... 

Here's a quick look at a typical Argentinean NYE menu:

Starters; 1) Matambre 2) Vittel Toné: something really typical (it's cow meat with a sauce made of tuna, mayonese and olive oil) 3) Empanadas: could be cow meat or chicken meat 
  











Main Dish: “Lechon con ensalada rusa” 
 




Drinks: For the toast something really sweet: sidra and ananá fizz (it might also be champagne, but since that's quite expensive it's not very common with the middle class). 

Sweets: The most important is the "mantecol" and the "garrapiñadas". Mantecol I think is a Greek sweet, but we eat it a lot in christmas, and garrapiñadas are sweet nuts. We also must have "pan dulce", a kind of panettone, with walnuts, hazelnuts and dried fruit that has a lot of calories, that we obviously don’t need during a 38°C summer. The only refreshing part is fruit salad and/with ice cream.